Generally, when containers are being transported in a cargo vessel or ship, the containers are stacked on the deck of the ship and secured by fasteners in order to prevent undesired movement or toppling down of the stacked containers. The inventor of this application has proposed several such fasteners, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,101,130B2, U.S. Pat. No. 7,422,400B2, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,575,403B2.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional fastener 8 is used for fastening a shipping container 4 to a deck 400 of a ship (not shown), and includes a turnbuckle 6, a lashing rod 7, and a hook member 2. The turnbuckle 6 includes upper and lower segments 61, 62 which are movable relative to each other and which can be secured to each other so as to tighten the lashing rod 7. The lower segment 62 has two lugs 621 which are secured to an eye plate 5 by virtue of a pin 502. The eye plate 5 is secured to a mounting frame 503 mounted on the deck 400 of the ship. The lashing rod 7 has upper and lower segments 71, 72. The lower segment 72 is connected to the upper segment 61 of the turnbuckle 6. The upper segment 71 has a through hole 711 (see FIG. 2). The hook member 2 has a main body 202, a hook 201, and a stop 203. The main body 202 extends through the through hole 711 and is pivotally mounted to the upper segment 71 by virtue of a pin 3. The pin 3 is mounted to an outward surface 712 of the upper segment 71. The hook 201 can extend into a side access opening 402 of a corner casting 401 of the shipping container 4. When the lashing rod 7 is tightened, the hook 201 and the stop 203 are in abutting engagement with inner and outer surfaces 403, 404 of the corner casting 401, respectively.
The mounting frame 503 is normally spaced apart from a bottommost one of the shipping containers 4 by a limited distance (A1), as shown in FIG. 1, and a minimum distance (d) between the lashing rod 7 and the shipping container 4 is relatively small (see FIG. 2). Therefore, when a plurality of the fasteners 8 are used to fasten the shipping containers 4 to the deck 400 with a criss-cross lashing arrangement, the lashing rods 7 of two adjacent ones of the fasteners 8 may rub against each other, and may thus deform and suffer dents 700 (only one is shown in FIG. 2).
To solve the above problem, another fastener 8′ is proposed (see FIGS. 3 and 4). The fastener 8′ includes a turnbuckle 6, a lashing rod 7′, and a hook member 2′. An upper segment 71′ of the lashing rod 7′ has two lugs 73 which are spaced apart from each other by a slot 74. The hook member 2′ includes a main body 202′, a hook (not shown), and a stop 203′. The main body 202′ extends through the slot 74 and is pivotably mounted to the lugs 73 by a pin 3′ that extends through the lugs 73 and an elongated slot 204′ of the main body 202′. However, when the fasteners 8′ are used to fasten the shipping containers 4, 4′ to a mounting frame 503, a distance between the mounting frame 503 and the bottommost one of the shipping containers 4, 4′ is larger than the distance (A1) shown in FIG. 1, which results in a waste of deck space.